Okay, four things happened in the last week that are causing me to pseudo-cheat on my 52 books in a year goal. Here they are, in order…
1. I found an amazing blog called The Dairi Burger, which brilliantly ridicules books I used to read as pre-teen called Sweet Valley High books (you can read more about that here). This caused me to think about what books I really did love as a teen and what it was about them that was so great…the kind of books that in my mind still manage to seem good and that I suspect will at least hold up partially over time (note: this would NOT include the SVH books).
2. I wrote a book…a while ago. It’s not a bad little book, but it’s not the great American novel that I (and everyone else it seems) so desperately wants to write. I’ve had to accept that maybe this book (and the two parts that go with it – yes, it’s a trilogy, *sigh*) just is what it is,. And maybe that it is just a middle ground between the young adult books that were a bit above the norm and and quite a bit below the great American novel that I’d like to write someday. Maybe I’m just not ready to write the great American novel…maybe I never will be. But perhaps I should go back and re-read some of this YA material and see if I’m nuts, or if it really does hold up pretty well?
3. I read I Am Legend this past weekend and really enjoyed it. I would consider it the middle ground of which I speak above. It is certainly more intelligent than a young adult novel and has more ramifications and themes behind it, but it is certainly too “pop” by today’s standards to be considered a “Great American Novel” whatever the hell that even means. Although written in 1954 it was certainly pretty revolutionary for its time and would probably not have been called ‘pop’, but we live now, so I’ll deal with now. So this is maybe the vague middle ground that I am looking for. I read it in a few hours, which makes me feel like it cannot be so important, but I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy in a few hours and I not only thought that was brilliant but it won the damn Pulitzer Prize! Perhaps the real problem here is that I need to redefine my definition of “Great American Novel”. More on that later, back to the point at hand…
4. I found (and by found I mean located on the internet and purchased very deliberately) a few of my long lost favorite young adult novels. I plan to re-read them as “research & development” and if it helps me toward my 52 book goal because they each only take two hours to read then so be it! Yea me! Anyone want to argue with my well documented justification here? Go ahead, give it a shot…
As a compromise, I promise not to count any more than 6 of these books, as that is officially how many books I am behind in my book a week goals…deal? Here’s a little teaser preview…
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Well, if you’re going to cheat with some YA books, at least pick some classics like the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys Super Mysteries. There’s even a couple Christmas ones to get you in the mood for the holidays.
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Holy shit, I’m ashamed to admit this, but I LOVED Christopher Pike when I was like 12 years old. I seriously read about 20 of his books.
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Oh my god, Kelly! I LOVED Christopher Pike and after you turned me onto Dairi Burger, I thought to myself, “I’ve got to re-read those…”
My favorite was “Remember Me” and I’m sure I did it several times for drama monologues in class Mr. Adams.
Let’s start a Christopher Pike online book club females with short attention spans!
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Christopher Pike…memories.
Kel, I hope you don’t mind if I hijack your comments section here to tell a funny story.
One of my middle school (Albion Knights representun!) English teachers, we’ll call her Mrs. South – and yes that’s a clue, got sick of her students questioning why she never assigned anything fun to read. One particular student suggested that we read Christopher Pike.
Apparently this teacher didn’t do her research. She assigned us all to read a Christopher Pike book of our own choosing and do a report. About 2 weeks and 10 parent phone calls later Mrs. South aborted the project and apologized to all the kids for subjecting them to “questionable content”. Awesome.
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wow. and here i thought i might get called out, either for cheating on my “book reports” or just for calling this post the titilating “cheating” and then just talking about some books…but instead closeted Christopher Pike fan’s came out of the woodwork!
TK42ONE: i never read much Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys, so unfortunately they don’t hold the memories for me…also, and i could be wrong since i didn’t read them much, but i think those books are geared younger than Pike’s books. although like jamminjabber i read them was i was 12 or 13 and not 15/16, they are about “older stuff” i think then most of the hardy boys/nancy drew stuff.
jamminjabber: don’t be afraid to admit it Josh…apparently us ashamed fans are legion. halfway through Final Friends #1 – The Party, i can say that they hold up better than i would have thought…don’t be afraid to ask me to loan you a couple… 😉
Holly: he was the best! i remember loving Remember Me…i think that was my first of his, but i also remember being pissed off when he brought her back and did like Remember Me 2 and Remember Me the final act or something ridiculous. i have to say, i only remember loving the early ones – Remember Me, Final Friends Trilogy, Weekend, Chain Letter, Scavenger Hunt…when he started to get all Witch-y and Vampire-y i remember being annoyed and checking out. i read a few, but not with the same enthusiasm. i do remember being blown away by Whisper of Death though, and thinking it was reaching for Stephen King heights (didn’t make it, but at least it tried to reach). I don’t think you should go back and re-read SVH – let The Dairi Burger site do it for you…she’s taking one for the team there i think. Oh Mr. Adams…*sigh*…what a dick.
Yeti: Comments section is for stories…tell as many as you like. i can’t believe Mrs. South would fall for such a trick…especially in Utah of all places…you can’t put anything past those clever mormons. sadly though, if those Utah parents were letting their daughters read SVH they were doing way more damage to them then a silly Pike book.
i don’t even really remember you reading Pike…did you read my copies? did you like them?
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I read one. It was probably one of yours. I think I remember enjoying it but feeling like I shouldn’t because I was being forced to read it for school. If I had only embraced what they told me to read for the quality that it was, I probably would have enjoyed a lot more of school.
Mostly I remember the utter shock that I felt when a school-assigned book gave me an interesting hot tub scene. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
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I can not believe that Josh was a fan of these books. That’s funny. Mr. “I-know-Chuck-Paulnik” reading 20+ young adult books. That being said, I never knew about these books. I was reading D&D books (Dragonlance Chronicles, The Crystal Shard, etc…) and I’m SURE that they don’t stand up.
I’m looking forward to you reviewing each of these books, perhaps like the blogger who does the SVH book posts, and having your blog rocket to fame as the source for Christopher Pike’s early work.
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